There was enough on A Northern Soul to justify it's existence (plus some reasonable b-sides), but ubiquity killed Urban Hymns and they shouldn't have bothered with Forth. There's a very good argument to say that A Storm In Heaven distilled their space rock beginnings into a tidy song-led format and they never surpassed it. Got that beautifully packaged box set reissue of ASIH and it's probably all the Verve anyone needs...

maybe I should give Forth another go. Liked Urban Hymns at the time, but like Elbow's One Day Like This, it suffered massively from too much airtime. Catching the Butterfly was the closest to their previous sound, and I remember it was my favourite (from that album). There's little to beat the triple whammy of She's A Superstar, Feel and Gravity Grave for me. Having said that, nearly any three song run on ASIH is almost as strong. I'm struggling to agree with myself!

Technically, their second "album" is an available-to-everyone, fan-only, £10 (but briefly cheaper on itunes, and youtube, etc) out-takes and old songs collection. I forget, it's complicated. They haven't done their "proper" second album yet. I hear it will have electronic drums.